The present invention relates to electrical connectors for solderless wire termination, particularly to a connector adapted to have the wire axially channeled in the slot.
Electrical connectors having wire-receiving slots are well known. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,116,522. Most such connectors employ a metal plate with a slot profiled therein, or employ a plate folded along an axis perpendicular to an elongate aperture in order to form a slot. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,629. The slot in this prior art is intended to receive a wire inserted laterally of the wire axis. It is also known to insert a wire into a groove by pressing a wire therein parallel of its axis as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,038,958 and 3,777,051, as well as to press a wire into a slotted plate parallel of its axis as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,173,388 and 4,225,208. The latter two patents disclose laying the wire to be terminated against a slot in a plate and forcing the wire progressively into the slot from a throat portion to a narrower wire-contacting portion of the slot. The wire has its sides sheared along the axis of the wire and is coined or mashed into the slot. The slot is substantially non-yielding and the termination is in the form of a crimp.